John C. Warner, an American Chemical Society member, educator, and chemist known for helping create the field of green chemistry, recently appeared in a new Netflix documentary, The Plastic Detox.
The documentary focuses on how six couples experiencing infertility try to limit their exposure to endocrine-disrupting plastics, like bisphenol A, over the course of 12 weeks. While that setup might read more like a reality show, it also included interviews with various scientists, including Warner, on the realities and challenges of lessening our exposure to plastic in daily life. The documentary received mixed reviews, with some viewers focusing on the lack of scientific rigor and others praising its informative yet humanizing take. The topic itself is far bigger than Warner could explain with a few minutes of airtime.
That’s why Warner recently sat down with C&EN reporter Sara Cottle to expand on the adoption of plastic, the complexity of embracing greener chemistry in industry and academia, and the importance of communicating science to the public.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q. The trailer for The Plastic Detox shows all the places plastic can be found—particularly in your home. Is there anything you would like to add, as a chemist, regarding the innovation of plastic that would help contextualize its accelerated adoption in the last 50 years?
A. As a synthetic chemist, if I wanted to build the world with a material, why in the world would I pick hydrocarbons? They are pretty boring molecules—there’s no functional groups. What the heck are you going to do with C-H-C-H-C-H? So, why do we use that? Is there something magic about petroleum? I would argue no—from a chemical perspective, it’s not the best starting point.
Brilliant scientists and inventors have benefited from the enormous amount of government-subsidized funding that has led to the use of hydrocarbons in materials research and development. If we went back in time and spent a similar amount of resources on cellulose, everything would be made from cellulose. If we did it on lignin, everything would be lignin; if we did it on cat hair, everything would be made out of cat hair (just kidding). You throw that kind of financial resources at something, and people are going to figure it out.
So now, in 2026, we say, “Oh, the magic of petroleum!” But it’s actually the magic of the financial vehicle that enabled it. So, good news is if we could fund research and discovery for a specific type of molecule once, we could do it again to find more sustainable options.
Bad news is we’re in a different political world now, and I worry that that’s never going to happen again.
Q. I’ve recently read that a couple of the anticipated challenges in adopting greener chemistry are costs and the acceleration of adoption. Do you have anything to say about those challenges?
A. When you hear people list the barriers or challenges to get green chemistry to market, I feel that most of the time the barriers and challenges that they list are the same for any new technology, sustainable or not. The power of the incumbency in commerce is massive. Bringing anything new to scale is extremely difficult without significant upfront capital investment. In my opinion, if you remove the challenges that any technology faces to become adopted at scale, you will find that green chemistry is actually a net positive that helps bring technologies forward.
Q. Chemicals at times can have a bad reputation with the public. What is the importance of having chemists’ voices included in conversations about the effects of chemicals?
A. It’s a little bit more complicated than that, and it’s because of our litigious society. If a company says, “We have recognized climate change; we’re going to reduce our carbon footprint,” everybody’s going to congratulate them.
If they say, “We want to rid ourselves of the dependency on the petroleum feedstocks; we’re going to move to a biobased set of feedstocks,” everyone is happy. But if a company says, “We are going to work on the toxicity profile of our products, and we’re going to make everything safe for humans in the environment.” A class action lawyer will say, “Did you just acknowledge that you currently believe your products need fixing?” Sadly, I worry that a company, even if they believe it in the depth of their heart . . . can’t talk about it in public because then they might become criminally liable.
There is a lot of money being spent by industry to test the toxicity of stuff. But we’re in a world where if they actually say they’re doing that, it’s a smoking gun. So it is extremely difficult to have this honest conversation. And because no one is talking about it, it’s understandable why some people assume they’re not doing it. And while there’s always more organizations can do, people are testing things, but they can’t talk about it.
Q. In the documentary you state, “Plastic doesn’t have to come from a toxic, petroleum-based material. We can learn to do it other ways.” Is there anything you would like to say about inventing better chemistry?
A. I try to engage in the US and the European Union’s programs promoting alternative assessments and chemical substitutions. There are many policies that require organizations to do alternative assessments and substitutions. Sadly, I feel that 90% of the time there are no better alternatives.
You can compare three bad things and talk about how all three of them have these trade-offs. The dream is to invent something that actually satisfies all the needs. We can yell loud and create bans and create policies telling companies to make better products, but if inventors aren’t inventing it, it can’t happen. Plastics have solved many important problems for society. . . . But that doesn’t mean we don’t also have a lot of problems because of plastics.
We must recognize how science works. There are 12 principles of green chemistry. If someone releases a product that addresses 2 of the principles, and someone says, “Wow, that did well on the market—I’m going to do these other 2 principles.” And that does well. Then someone else says, “OK, I’m going to add to that”—that’s also how science works.
Somehow, we need to celebrate every improvement. We need to be measuring from status quo to where we go as opposed to how far from perfection we are. . . . If we wait for perfection, we’re literally supporting the status quo.
Q. Can you talk more about the public’s perception of scientists and what forms science communication can take? Is there anything to be said about preconceived notions about chemists?
A. Well, I feel very strongly about this. When I was a professor, I received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science [Mathematics, and Engineering] Mentoring. I spent half an hour in the Oval Office with President [George W.] Bush. I received it for bringing underrepresented groups into the chemical sciences, and green chemistry was part of it. As a professor, I would have dozens of people doing research in my lab—visiting professors, postdocs, graduate students, undergraduate students. But all the people working in my lab would, almost twice a month, go visit a third-grade or an eighth-grade class and explain to them what they were doing. I had no funding, no grants for this, but over the years, about 100 school systems around New England took advantage of this activity. The benefits of this were twofold: first, the students being visited could see people not that much older than them, passionate and excited, say, “I am working in the lab. I am doing this.”
But equally important to the students was that my researchers had to speak more from the heart. You have to learn how to communicate with people who aren’t scientists. And if that was just a fundamental part of our education, that would change a lot.
Q. What do you think the rise in public concern about issues like plastic waste means for the future of green chemistry? And what can chemists do to address or even embrace the concern?
A. I think that for films like [The Plastic Detox] telling people to be concerned is unfortunately a necessary component of our world. People react to problems, and that’s what gets people’s attention. The most important thing is how we as chemists react to this. If the chemist rejects it and says, “That’s bad science!” the public isn’t going to trust us. We can’t deny the problems.
We have to remember we’re talking to audiences that don’t see the world through the lens of peer-reviewed journal publications. They’re looking at the health and safety of their kids. They’re wondering about stuff in their environment. And to be told, “Don’t worry about it” is the absolute worst thing we could possibly do.
We have to first say, “Yes, this is a problem. And today, let’s hope it’s the worst it ever is. And tomorrow we get better, and the next day we get better.” But if we’re fighting against each other, then we’re not making progress. So somehow we must make peace with the fact that we’re going to have to chart a path to get rid of these things like plastic waste.
Scientists need to have compassion and empathy for people who haven’t got the training that they have had. And if we try to put ourselves on pedestals because of our wisdom and knowledge, we lose before we start.
One of the greatest American inventors in history is Edwin Land. One of his biographies is titled Insisting on the Impossible. We must insist on doing this impossible task. And if we believe it can be done, we’ll find ways to make it happen.
